St. Henry drives effort to spread Society of St. Vincent de Paul in diocese

The Kaegi brothers, Conner, 5, Russell, 8, and Alex, 9, recently held a lemonade stand to raise money to support the Society of St. Vincent de Paul Conference at St. Henry Church. St. Henry Parish has one of the most active St. Vincent de Paul Conferences in the Diocese of Nashville, and is offering guidance to other parishes that want to start them.

The Society of St. Vincent de Paul Conference at St. Henry Church is making great efforts to establish more conferences in the area so that the people of the Diocese of Nashville can be more responsive to those in need.

Of the 53 parishes in the Diocese of Nashville, less than 10 have conferences. “Several are active, a couple are newer, and just finding their way, but we have a desire to be more effective in meeting the needs of the disadvantaged in our community – and by that I mean all of the communities that our diocese supports,” said Ron Szejner, a parishioner at St. Henry’s and an active Vincentian.

To that end, Szejner has had several conversations with priests throughout the diocese to try to encourage them to create their own conferences.

“If the pastor decides to, and if there are people within the parish who want to get involved in this kind of ministry, then it makes it easier for everybody,” he said. “It means more of us are available to deal with the disadvantaged in our community.”

The people who make up the parish conferences – Vincentians – volunteer their time to assist parishioners and others in the community-at-large who are having a difficult time. That assistance is often in the form of money for short-term deficits, but might also involve simply being available to people as they discuss their current challenges.

“We take care of basic needs,” explained Szejner. “It could be food, it could be medicine, basic utilities, or helping them find employment. We try to keep these people in our prayers. We listen to their problems. We sympathize with them. We cry with them. We try to help them with whatever means we can.”

Sometimes the issues people are dealing with are too big or beyond the ability of a parish Vincentian to handle. In those situations, the conference takes on more of an information and referral role, helping the “client” connect to one of the many organizations in the community – faith-based and secular – that the conference collaborates with.

“We’re not social workers,” said Szejner. “We have people who, besides their immediate need, need some real long-term hand-holding, counseling or social services. In those cases, we might introduce them to Catholic Charities or other organizations within the community that can provide that help. Rather than duplicate services, we try to make the right introduction to provide the best and most appropriate resources to that person who comes to our attention.”

The Vincentians respond to requests on a weekly basis, and all calls for assistance are returned. “We have as few as 15 calls a week but frequently have as many as 45, especially during the winter months,” said Mary Lange, Secretary of the St. Vincent de Paul Conference at St. Henry. “Assistance with utility bills are received often. We may receive requests for items that we cannot provide but will offer assistance in another form in order to free up resources.”

During the Christmas season, the St. Henry Conference helps the Ladies of Charity distribute food boxes, which amounted to 85 donations last year. “In addition to the food boxes, we support our clients with a bag of groceries, winter coats and toys for Christmas,” Lange said. “We ask clients to come to St. Henry Church in order for us to reunite with those we have been able to support throughout the year.”

Many of the people that reach out for help are parishioners, but just as many are people in the surrounding community who have heard about the parish’s benevolent resource. The recipient of help does not have to be Catholic. “The reason we do this is not because the person in need is Catholic, it’s because we are Catholic,” Szejner said. “We are called; ‘we’ being the lay people who serve.”

St. Vincent de Paul was born in Landes, France, in 1581. Known as “The Apostle of Charity” and “Father of the Poor,” he trained priests and religious sisters and organized parish missions to provide services for the poor.

The Society of St. Vincent de Paul is an international organization based in Paris. Today, the Society operates in 150 countries and on five continents, with 44,600 conferences and 800,000 Vincen-tians.

The Society of St. Vincent de Paul was established in in the United States in 1845 in St. Louis, which remains its national headquar-ters today.

In the United States, there are 64,000 Society of St. Vincent de Paul members based in 4,400 local parish conferences. Conferences are supported at the next level by District Councils.

The leader of the Diocese of Nashville’s District Council recently had to step down due to daily work commitments. Szejner and others are actively trying to recruit a new person to get the District Council restarted.

Most conferences, here and abroad, rely on donations to do their work. This is certainly the case at St. Henry, where the parishioners are very generous contributors of funds and goods to its conference.

“The children and parents of St. Henry School donate an abundance of food to keep the shelves of the food closet full for those in need,” said Lange. “We are able to assist with the basic needs of over 1,000 families or individuals each year.”

The St. Henry St. Vincent DePaul Conference is willing to use some of its resources to help other parishes to establish their own conferences.

“We would be there to share some of our financial resources with a parish that wants to start a St. Vincent de Paul Conference,” said Szejner. “There’s also a family within our diocese that has promised to financially underwrite, to the extent of a modest four figures, any new conference that gets started.”

Beyond start-up funds, St. Henry’s Vincentians – currently 25 men and women – are committed to supporting new conferences by helping the parishes develop Vincentian membership and a regular meeting structure, and in filling out and processing the necessary paperwork to ensure the conference is officially aligned with the national organization.

“We’re trying to remove the hurdles, to make it easier for them to establish and then sustain a St. Vincent de Paul Conference,” Szejner said. “If their concern is financial, if their concern is whether it would be too much of a burden, who’s going to help us with the teaching, who’s going to help with the IRS paperwork that needs to be completed – the short answer is ‘we are.’ The St. Vincent de Paul Conference at St. Henry’s is the resource to help right now. Ultimately it would be the role of the District Council, but until we get that position filled, we’re trying to fill the gap.”

For more information about how a St. Vincent de Paul Conference functions, or for guidance in establishing a new conference, contact Szejner at szejnerr@bellsouth.net or call the St. Henry Conference at 615-630-6620. More information is also available on the Society of St. Vincent de Paul website,
www.svdpusa.org.